Quickies: The Assumed Whiteness of Characters, the Wrongness of that Nicki Minaj Profile, and the Problems with the “Gay Gene” Study

Is Hermione Granger White? – “Most of us assume that Hermione is white because she is never presented as a racial other. In Western culture, white is the “neutral” race. Rowling is silent about Hermione’s race, and we interpret that silence as default whiteness.”

Dark-skinned Playmobil pirate-ship doll wearing ‘slave collar’ ignites outrage – ” ‘Newsflash, Playmobil: this is the 21st century. People of African descent have contributed to mankind in a myriad of ways that existed outside of the disgusting institution of the slave trade. Selling children’s toys that are suggestive of slavery in play is obscene, even moreso given the marked absence of diversity in your entire toy line.’ “

Everything is Wrong with Vanessa Grigoriadis’s Interview and Profile of Nicki Minaj – “There are so many problems with the tone and language of this piece that it’s hard to focus on just one aspect of it, instead I’ll be addressing several of my major concerns: her problematic framing of the Minaj/Swift/Cyrus beef, her lackadaisical engagement with feminism, and her trivializing of Nicki Minaj’s personal experiences.” From Courtney.

In Texas, Being Poor is a Crime – “People in Texas get thrown behind bars just because they can’t afford their traffic tickets. That’s a disaster for people who are already struggling. It’s also completely against the law.”

No, Scientists Have Not Found the ‘Gay Gene’ – “The problems begin with the size of the study, which is tiny. The field of epigenetics is littered with the corpses of statistically underpowered studies like these, which simply lack the numbers to produce reliable, reproducible results.” From Will.

The Doomed Effort to Make Videos go Vinyl – “Few people even remember that such a medium as vinyl movies existed, but for a brief, doomed period in the early 1980s, home video was available on CEDs. While CED players were not released to consumers until 1981, the development of the system dates back to the 1960s. The idea was that they could encode sound and video information to a vinyl disc if they could only get the grooves small enough.”

While you can read Hermione Granger as a person of color, you can’t give Rowling any credit for diversity if you so choose. As mentioned, white’s the default; you need to make it clear somehow. With Su Li and Cho Chang, it’s the name that’s a giveaway. With Kingsley Shacklebolt, his race is explicitly mentioned.

There’s an evil flip side to the assumed whiteness as well. I remember a blog commenter, after the first Lord of the Rings movie was released, who said that Samwise Gamgee had been horribly miscast. The poster felt that since he was Frodo’s gardener and footman, and he spoke very simply, he was supposed to be black.

So someone was actually idiotic enough, and racist enough to assume that servants and the uneducated always have to be black, and their wealthy employer always have to be white, even in a fantasy realm?

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The Skepchick Network is a collection of smart and often sarcastic blogs focused on science and critical thinking. The original site is Skepchick.org, founded by Rebecca Watson in 2005 to discuss women’s issues from a skeptical standpoint.